LANGDON  SMI 


r»Y.WHEN  YOU  WERE  A  TADPOLE  AND  I  WAS  A 


B   3   315   133 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


VOI         ION 


'When    you    were    a    tadpole 
and        I        was        a        fish" 


By    LANGDON    SMITH 


Boston,  JOHN      W. 

LUCE    and    COMPANY.  MCMIX 


Copyright,  1909, 
BY  L.  E.  BASSETT  AND  COMPANY 


> 


INTRODUCTION 


M375912 


"EVOLUTION'    AND   THE    MAN   WHO 
WROTE    IT 

To  weld  the  theory  of  soul-transmigration  to  the 
reality  of  evolution  was  an  inspiration  that,  coming 
to  Langdon  Smith  in  the  midst  of  a  busy  life,  never 
theless  sung  itself  into  his  heart  with  a  wealth  of  poetic 
meaning  and  suggestion  that  found  its  ultimate  ex 
pression  in  the  verses  which  so  securely  link  his  name 
with  those  whom  no  passing  moment  can  plunge  into 
obscurity. 

In  one  hundred  and  eight  short  lines  of  poetry  he 
reached  back  into  the  geological  beginning,  picked  up 
the  first  sparks  of  life  lying  inert  in  the  Paleozoic 
period  and  brought  them  side  by  side  into  the  light 
of  present  day  civilization  and  to  the  highest  type  of 
life  thus  far  developed,  by  stages  opposed  to  no  law  of 
nature  as  interpreted  by  modern  philosopher  and  scien 
tist. 

The  author  did  more  than  this.  To  have  stopped 
there  would  have  been  merely  clever,  merely  the  ex 
pression  in  poetic  form  of  Darwin's  "  Descent  of  Man," 


and  his  epic  of  Evolution  is  far  more  than  cleverness, 
it  has  the  ring  of  genius. 

The  crowning  glory  of  "  Evolution  "  is,  perhaps,  the 
manner  in  which  he  interwove  throughout  his  master 
piece  of  imagination  a  golden  thread  of  romance  that 
becomes  more  and  more  lustrous  as  the  story  unfolds. 
He  linked  inseparably  physical  life  and  spiritual  life, 
the  so-called  vital  and  eternal  sparks,  as,  into  the  web 
of  the  lives  that  evolve,  he  wove  the  woof  of  love  and 
brought  them  down  through  the  ages  together  as  one. 

"  For  I  loved  you  even  then,"  he  sings  as  he  throws 
his  soul  back  through  the  ages  to  the  first  vertebrates 
of  the  Paleozoic  period.  Ever  together  he  pictures 
"life  by  life,"  "love  by  love,"  "breath  by  breath," 
"  death  by  death  "  and  back  to  "  life  by  life  "  again, 
down  through  every  stage  of  evolution's  wonderful  path 
from  darkness  to  light,  from  trilibite  to  civilized  man. 

The  beginning  of  matter,  the  dawn  of  life,  the 
changes  through  all  the  eons,  the  theory  that  life  lives 
anew  and  love,  the  soul,  lives  eternally  with  it,  Langdon 
Smith  encompassed  in  his  poem. 

And  yet  he  found  no  need  to  dispute  Huxley,  Spen 
cer,  Darwin  or  Lowell;  he  saw  no  reason  to  rail  at 


Buddha,  Pythagoras,  Confucius,  Orpheus,  Socrates  or 
Jesus.  He  felt  that  he  had  lived  in  the  dim  past  and 
that  he  would  live  in  the  lustrous  future.  He  reduced 
immortality  to  a  science  and  science  to  immortality. 

Langdon  Smith  was  born  in  Kentucky  Jan.  4,  1858, 
and  received  a  common  school  education  at  Louisville. 
In  boyhood  he  served  in  the  Comanche  and  Apache  wars 
as  a  trooper,  his  letters  descriptive  of  these  campaigns 
winning  him  his  first  newspaper  position.  Later  he 
acted  as  a  war  correspondent  during  the  extended 
fighting  with  the  Sioux  tribes.  In  1894  he  married 
Marie  Antoinette  Wright  and  soon  after  went  to  Cuba 
as  correspondent  for  the  New  York  Herald,  being  a 
non-combatant  on  Gen.  Maceo's  staff  during  the  Cu 
ban's  effort  to  overthrow  Spanish  rule.  He  again  went 
to  Cuba  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish- American  war 
as  a  representative  of  the  New  York  Journal.  One  of 
the  first  at  the  front,  he  was  present  at  all  the  principal 
engagements,  taking  high  rank  as  a  war  correspondent. 

Aside  from  his  success  as  a  newspaper  writer,  his 
novel  "  On  the  Pan  Handle "  met  a  favourable  re 
ception;  his  short  stories  made  him  still  better  known, 
but  it  is  as  the  author  of  "  Evolution  "  that  he  is  best 


remembered.  Skilled  as  a  war  correspondent,  himself 
a  veteran  Indian  fighter,  a  technical  writer  of  sports, 
possessed  of  a  mentality  too  great  to  be  handicapped 
through  lack  of  university  training,  he  thought  for  him 
self  upon  life  and  death,  of  the  past  and  future,  and 
in  "  Evolution  "  voiced  his  beliefs. 

The  first  few  stanzas  of  "  Evolution  "  were  written 
in  1895  and  published  in  the  New  York  Herald  where 
he  was  then  employed.  Four  years  later,  when  a  mem 
ber  of  the  New  York  Journal  staff,  he  wrote  several 
more.  These  he  laid  aside  for  a  while  and  then,  from 
time  to  time,  added  a  stanza  until  it  was  completed. 
Whether  the  editorial  department  failed  to  appreciate 
the  poem,  or  the  foreman  of  the  composing  room  needed 
something  with  which  to  fill  out  a  page  is  not  known, 
but  "  Evolution  "  first  appeared  in  its  entirety  in  the 
center  of  a  page  of  want  advertisements  in  the  New 
York  Journal. 

A  work  of  such  merit,  however,  could  not  be  lost. 
Mr.  Smith  received  thousands  of  congratulatory  let 
ters  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  accompanied  by  re 
quests  for  copies  of  the  poem  which  were  exceedingly 
difficult  to  secure  until  reprinted  in  April,  1906,  in 


iv 


"  The  Scrap  Book,"  edited  by  Mr.  Frank  A.  Munsey. 
April  eighth,  1908,  Langdon  Smith  died  at  his  home 
in  New  York.  Admirers  of  "  Evolution  "  have  been 
struck  with  the  coincidence  of  his  wife's  death  occurring 
as  it  did  within  five  weeks  of  his  own.  Their  lives  and 
affections  linked  as  they  were,  in  his  poetic  fancy  at 
least,  since  the  beginning  of  time  seem  to  have  created 
between  them  in  reality  a  bond  too  close  to  survive  a 
parting. 

LEWIS  ALLEN  BROWNE. 


EVOLUTION 


THE  FIRST  BOOK  OF  MOSES 
CALLED  GENESIS 

Chapter  I 

Verse  1  .  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven 
and  the  earth. 

Verse  20.  And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  bring  forth 
abundantly  the  moving  creature  that  hath  life,  and  that 
may  fly  above  the  earth  in  the  open  firmament  of  heaven. 


The  paleozoic  period,  embracing  the  oldest  division 
of  the  geological  series,  may  be  properly  separated  into 
two  great  divisions,  an  older  and  a  newer.  The  newer 
paleozoic  period  is  distinguished  by  the  number  and 
variety  of  its  fishes  and  amphibia.  —  Century  Dictionary. 

The  progenitors  of  man  must  have  been  aquatic  in 
their  habits;  for  morphology  plainly  tells  us  that  our 
lungs  consist  of  a  modified  swine-bladder  which  once 
served  as  a  float.  —  Charles  Darwin. 

The  Cambrian  is  the  lowest  of  the  primary  strata 
exhibiting  unmistakable  organic  remains. 

—  Percival  Lowell. 


OLUTION 
I 


WHEN  you  were  a  tadpole  and  I  was 

a  fish, 
In  the  Paleozoic  time, 


prawled  through  the  ooze 
th  many  a  caudal 


skittered 
Through 
brian 


The  man  of  science  cannot  hesitate.  He  cannot  be 
lieve  that  there  was  actually  a  break  between  the  inor 
ganic  and  the  organic  evolutions,  bridged  over  by  the 
direct  action  of  the  finger  of  God.  He  must  believe  that 
waving  palm  trees  and  toddling  children  and  wave-beaten 
rocks  are  alike  the  present  natural  outcome  of  an  abso 
lute  sequence  of  cause  and  effect,  passing  back  to  the 
blazing  star  that  formed  the  elements  that  comprise  them. 
—  'Professor  Robert  K.  Duncan, 

University  of  Kansas. 

Virtually  only  six  so-called  elements  go  to  make  up 
the  molecule  of  life.  It  is  the  number  of  its  constituent 
atoms,  and  the  intricacy  of  their  binding  together,  that 
give  it  the  instability  to  produce  vital  actions.  Carbon, 
hydrogen,  oxygen,  nitrogen,  phosphorus  and  sulphur  are 
all  that  is  required. 

Spontaneous  generation  is  as  certain  as  spontaneous 
variation,  of  which  it  is  in  fact  only  an  expression. 

—  Percival  Lowell,  LL.D., 
Director  of  the  Lowell  Observatory 

The  Caradoc  sandstone  named  by  Sir  Roderick 
Murchison  from  the  mountain  called  Caer  Caradoc,  in 
Shropshire,  consists  of  shelly  sandstones  of  great  thick 
ness,  containing  trilobites  and  many  other  fossils. 

-Sir Charles  Lyell,F.R.S. 


Mindless  we  lived  and  mindless  we 

loved, 

And  mindless  at  last  we  died ; 
And  deep  in  a  rift  of  the  Caradoc 

drift 

We  slumbered  side  by  side. 
The  world  turned  on  in  the  lathe  of 

time, 

The  hot  lands  heaved  amain, 
Till  we  caught  our  breath  from  the 

womb  of  death, 
And  crept  into  light  again. 


Organic  development  proceeded  from  amoeba  to  fish, 
attaining  no  mean  height  in  the  process.  But  at  last  a 
better  habitat  offered  itself,  and  was  speedily  appropriated. 
Weathering  of  the  land  and  constantly  changing  chemic 
processes  prepared  the  continents  for  organic  use.  Plants 
gradually  found  foothold,  and  insects  an  abode.  Then 
came  the  exodus  from  the  sea.  We  may  picture  some 
adventurous  fish,  spurred  blindly  from  within,  essaying  the 
shore  in  preference  to  the  main.  Finding  the  littoral  not 
inhospitable,  the  pioneer  was  followed  by  others  whom 
variation  had  specially  endowed.  Thus  arose  the  am 
phibia  in  the  Carboniferous  era,  visitors  only  to  the  solid 
ground.  From  them  came  the  reptiles,  their  descendants, 
in  the  Permian,  who,  from  the  temporary  sojourners  their 
fathers  were,  developed  into  permanent  denizens  of  the 
new  abode.  From  this  aboriginal  crawling  out  upon  terra 
firma  the  organism  progressed  until  finally  it  came  to  stand 
erect  and  call  itself  a  man. 

Lowell. 

Even  footprints  of  past  reptiles  confront  us,  legible  still 
on  the  hardened  sands  of  time,  as  if  made  yesterday  in 
the  spots  they  traversed  hundred  of  centuries  ago. 

Lotoell. 


!p 


v.  ^ 


«*&& 

£^d 


III 

We   were    Amphibians,    scaled    and 

tailed, 

^yi^  And  drab  as  a  dead  man's  hand; 

Illfflii     ^e  coiled  at  ease  'neath  the  dripping 

trees, 
Or  trailed  through  the  mud  and 

sand, 

Croaking  and  blind,  with  our  three- 
clawed  feet 

Writing  a  language  dumb, 
With  never  a  spark  in  the  empty  dark 
To  hint  at  a  life  to  come. 


V 


mm 


Neocomian  is  the  name  given  the  lower  division  of  the 
cretaceous  system  formed  in  part  at  least  by  the  wearing 
down  of  the  pre-existing  oolithic  rocks.  The  land  formed 
by  such  rocks  was  largely  submerged  before  the  origin  of 
the  white  chalk  which  was  formed  in  a  more  open  sea 
and  in  clearer  water.  Sir  Charles  Lyell. 

Fresh  water  formations  of  the  Neocomian  period  exhibit 
fossil  remains  of  terrestrial  reptiles,  the  trunks  and  leaves 
of  land  plants.  Of  this  period  was  the  Iguanodon  Man- 
telli,  a  gigantic  lizard  a  specimen  of  the  thigh-bone  of  one  of 
which  measures  twenty-four  inches  in  circumference.  The 
saurians,  the  largest  individuals  of  the  reptile  family  ever 
inhabiting  the  globe,  had  not  at  this  time  entirely  disap 
peared.  Sir  Charles  Lyell. 

With  this  verse  the  author  ceases  to  trace  the  develop 
ment  of  life  through  the  early  geological  formations  and 
lays  the  scene  of  the  next  stanza  in  the  comparatively 
recent  tertiary  period.  Ed. 


Yet  happy  we  lived,  and  happy  we 

loved, 

And  happy  we  died  once  more; 
Our  forms  were  rolled  in  the  clinging 

mold 

Of  a  Neocomian  shore. 
The  eons  came,  and  the  eons  fled, 
And  the   sleep  that  wrapped  us 

fast 

Was  riven  away  in  a  newer  day, 
And  the  night  of  death  was  past. 


Unless  we  wilfully  close  our  eyes  we  may  with  our 
present  knowledge  approximately  recognize  our  parentage. 
The  Simiadae  branched  into  two  great  stems,  the  New 
World  and  Old  World  monkeys;  and  from  the  latter  at 
a  remote  period,  man,  the' wonder  and  glory  of  the 
Universe,  proceeded. 

Charles  Darwin. 


The  great  break  in  the  organic  chain  between  man  and 
his  nearest  allies,  which  can  not  be  bridged  over  by  any 
extinct  or  living  species,  has  often  been  advanced  as  a 
grave  objection  to  the  belief  that  man  is  descended  from 
some  lower  form,  but  this  objection  will  not  appear  of 
much  weight  to  those  who  believe  in  the  general  principle 
of  evolution.  At  some  future  period  the  civilized  races  of 
man  will  almost  certainly  exterminate  the  savage  races  of 
the  world.  At  the  same  time  the  anthropomorphous 
apes  will  no  doubt  be  exterminated.  The  break  between 
man  and  his  nearest  allies  will  then  be  wider,  for  it  will 
intervene  between  man  in  a  more  civilized  state  as  we 
may  hope  even  than  the  Caucasian  and  some  ape  as  low 
as  a  baboon  instead  of  as  now  between  the  Negro  or 
Australian  and  the  gorilla. 

Charles  Darwin. 


Then  light   and   swift  through  the 

jungle  trees 

We  swung  in  our  airy  flights, 
Or    breathed    in    the    balms    of    the 

fronded  palms, 

In  the  hush  of  the  moonless  nights. 
And  oh!  what  beautiful  years  were 

these, 
When   our   hearts   clung   each   to 

each; 
When  life  was  filled,  and  our  senses 

thrilled 
In  the  first  faint  dawn  of  speech. 


The  conceptions  of  God  are  various,  differing  widely 
in  different  systems  of  religion  and  metaphysics ;  but  they 
fall  in  general  under  two  heads :  theism,  which  is  most 
fully  developed  in  Christianity  and  in  which  God  is 
regarded  as  a  personal  moral  being  distinct  from  the  uni 
verse  of  which  he  is  the  author  and  ruler ;  and  pantheism, 
in  which  God  is  conceived  as  not  personal  and  as  identi 
fied  with  the  universe.  Century  Dictionary. 

The  work  of  Darwin  convinced  men  of  the  continuity 
of  human  with  animal  evolution  as  regards  all  bodily 
characteristics  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  quickly  fol 
lowing  recognition  of  the  similar  continuity  of  man's 
mental  evolution  with  that  of  the  animal  world. 

An  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology 
by  William  McDougali 

I  may  add  the  expression  of  my  belief  that  the  attempt 
to  draw  a  psychical  distinction  between  man  and  the 
animal  world  is  equally  futile,  and  that  even  the  highest 
faculties  of  feeling  and  of  intellect  begin  to  germinate  in 
lower  forms  of  life.  Huxley,  1863. 

Some  of  us  are  already  convinced  that  the  human  soul 
in  all  its  power  is  just  as  much  a  product  of  evolution  as 
the  body.  Q-  Stanley  Hall  1909. 


Thus  life  by  life,  and  love  by  love, 
We    passed    through    the    cycles 

strange, 
And  breath  by  breath,  and  death  by 

death, 

We  followed  the  chain  of  change. 
Till  there  came  a  time  in  the  law  of 

life 

When  over  the  nursing  sod 
The   shadows   broke,    and   the   soul 

awoke 
In  a  strange,  dim  dream  of  God. 


The  cave  dwellers  of  the  stone  age  succeed  in  point  of 
time  an  even  earlier  group  of  prehistoric  men  both  so 
ancient  that  no  attempt  is  made  to  fix  the  date  of  their 
existence  save  in  geological  terms.  Ascribed  to  the 
Quatenary  period,  prehistoric  man  at  the  coming  of  the 
glacial  period  was  obliged  by  the  change  of  climate  to 
seek  the  shelter  and  warmth  of  caverns,  there  to  take  up 
his  abode  during  the  centuries  which  elapsed  before  the 
dawn  of  a  later  geological  epoch. 

In  France  particularly  the  evidences  of  cave  dwellers 
are  numerous.  The  floors  of  the  caverns  occupied  by 
them  are  found  impregnated  with  their  flint  implements, 
the  bones  of  animals  on  which  they  lived,  many  of  which 
are  of  extinct  species. 

Smithsonian  Report. 

The  aurochs  is  the  European  bison,  differing  but  slightly 
from  the  American  Buffalo. 

Ed. 


The  great  cave  bear  is  extinct  and  has  been  in  all  his 
toric  time.  Its  existence  is  known  only  from  fossil  remains 
and  a  single  engraving  on  stone  in  the  Prehistoric  Museum 
at  Faux. 

Ed. 


I  was  ihewed  like  an  Auroch  bull, 
And  tusked  like  the  great  Cave 

Bear; 
And  you,  my  sweet,  from  head  to 

feet, 

Were  gowned  in  your  glorious  hair. 

Deep  in  the  gloom  of  a  fireless  cave, 

When  the  night  fell  o'er  the  plain, 

And  the  moon  hung  red  o'er  the  river 

bed, 
We  mumbled  the  bones  of  the  slain. 


The  earliest  manifestations  of  human  art  consisted  of 
the  chipping  of  flint  implements,  which  before  the  close  of 
the  cave  dwelling  period  had  reached  a  state  of  develop 
ment  both  in  design  and  workmanship  comparable  with 
those  found  in  use  among  uncivilized  peoples  almost  down 
to  the  present  time. 

The  spear  head  of  this  period  was  of  flint  or  quartz 
leaf  shaped  of  considerable  length  and  decreased  thick 
ness,  sometimes  made  with  a  shoulder  on  one  side  to 
enable  its  being  more  firmly  attached  to  the  wooden 
shaft.  This  last  named  innovation  was  the  precursor  of 
the  notched  arrow  and  spear  head  which  travelled  through 
both  hemispheres  while  civilization  was  yet  young  and 
before  history  began. 

Smithsonian  Report. 


The  mammoth,  the  last  survivor  of  the  three  species  of 
elephant  inhabiting  Europe,  flourished  before  and  during 
the  glacial  period.  In  size  this  species  exceeded  the  ele 
phant  of  modern  times  from  which  it  is  further  distinguished 
by  large  curved  tusks  and  a  thick  coat  of  hair. 

Ed. 


I  flaked  a  flint  to  a  cutting  edge, 

And  shaped  it  with  brutish  craft; 
I  broke  a  shank  from  the  woodland 

dank, 

And  fitted  it,  head  and  haft. 
Then  I  hid  me  close  to  the  reedy 

tarn, 
Where    the    Mammoth    came    to 

drink ;  — 
Through  brawn  and  bone  I  drave  the 

stone, 
And  slew  him  upon  the  brink. 


The  gregarious  instinct  is  one  of  the  human  instincts 
of  greatest  social  importance.  Its  operation  in  its  simplest 
form  implies  none  of  the  higher  qualities  of  mind,  neither 
sympathy  nor  capacity  for  mutual  aid. 

In  civilized  communities  we  may  see  evidence  of  the 
operation  of  this  instinct  on  every  hand.  For  all  but  a  few 
exceptional,  and  generally  highly  cultivated,  persons  the 
one  essential  condition  of  recreation  is  the  being  one  of  a 
crowd. 

Although  opinions  differ  widely  as  to  the  form  of 
primitive  human  society,  some  inclining  to  the  view  that 
it  was  a  large  promiscuous  horde,  others,  with  more  proba 
bility,  regarding  it  as  a  comparatively  small  group  of  near 
blood  relatives,  almost  all  anthropologists  agree  that  primi 
tive  man  was  to  some  extent  gregarious  in  his  habits. 

This  gregarious  impulse  seems  generally  to  be  called 
into  play  in  conjunction  with  some  other  instinct,  render 
ing  complete  satisfaction  of  its  impulse  impossible  until  we 
are  surrounded  by  others  who  share  our  emotion. 
An  Introduction   to  Social  Psychology,  by    William 

McDougall. 

In  calling  his  kith  and  kin  to  the  feast  the  man  of  the 
Stone  Age  displayed  his  gregarious  instinct  in  conjunction 
with  his  instinct  of  self-assertion  and  the  emotion  of  ela 
tion  rather  than  a  more  developed  social  sympathy. 

Ed. 


Loud  I  howled  through  the  moonlit 

wastes, 

Loud  answered  our  kith  and  kin; 
From  west  and  east  to  the  crimson 

feast 

The  clan  came  trooping  in. 
O'er  joint  and  gristle  and  padded 

hoof, 

We  fought,  and  clawed  and  tore, 
And  cheek  by  jowl,   with  many  a 

growl, 
We  talked  the  marvel  o'er. 


In  the  museum  of  Natural  History  in  Paris  is  an  engrav 
ing  found  at  La  Madelaine  of  a  mammoth  carved  on  a 
fragment  of  his  own  tusk.  The  lofty  skull,  the  bulging 
forehead,  the  curved  tusks  and  shaggy  hair  identify  it 
satisfactorily.  It  is  so  well  done  that  one  must  believe  the 
artist  had  seen  the  animal  if  he  did  not  make  the  drawing 
from  real  life. 

The  engraving  tools  of  this  period,  specimens  of  which 
are  in  the  National  Museum  at  Washington,  are  of  flint 
not  dressed  to  a  sharp  point  from  all  sides,  but  V  shaped 
as  are  the  gravers*  of  to-day.  Some  of  the  specimens  are 
quite  worn,  while  others  are  sharp  and  could  now  be 
used  to  engrave  bones  as  in  the  prehistoric  times. 

The  most  wonderful  exhibition  of  art  in  this  epoch  was 
in  the  representation  of  animal  life.  Sometimes  the  animals 
are  at  rest,  but  many  times  they  are  in  action.  Hunting 
scenes  are  depicted  in  which  the  hunter,  a  man,  is  shown 
in  pursuit  of  game  and  in  conflict  with  it.  The  mammoth, 
cave  bear,  reindeer,  horse,  bison,  musk-ox,  birds,  and 
others  are  depicted.  Some  of  these  are  Arctic  animals 
now,  others  are  extinct. 

These  engravings  and  carvings  mark  the  earliest  human 
expression  of  the  beautiful  in  art  for  art's  sake  and  is  said 
to  be  the  first  step  in  evolution  from  savagery. 

Smithsonian  Report. 


I  carved  that  fight  on  a  reindeer  bone, 

With  rude  and  hairy  hand, 
I  pictured  his  fall  on  the  cavern  wall 

That  men  might  understand. 
For  we  lived  by  blood,  and  the  right 
of  might, 

Ere  human  laws  were  drawn, 
And  the  Age  of  Sin  did  not  begin 

Till  our  brutal  tusks  were  gone. 


Since  the  acceptance  of  the  principle  of  evolution  there 
has  come  a  realization  of  the  continuity  in  nature  which 
establishes  in  the  mind  of  man  a  relation  of  intimacy  with 
it  limited  neither  by  time  nor  space.  The  impersonal  at 
titude  from  which  man  viewed  nature  has  given  place  to 
a  sense  of  kinship  with  it  and  with  every  product  of  its 
laws  and  even  with  those  laws  themselves.  His  thoughts, 
should  he  throw  them  back  a  million  years,  have  not 
even  then  travelled  so  far  as  to  reach  the  border  land  of 
a  time  the  impress  of  which  he  does  not  bear  in  his  own 
person. 

Nor  is  his  soul,  the  moral  and  emotional  part  of  his 
nature,  less  intimately  linked  to  the  history  of  that  dim 
past  and  each  succeeding  period  of  time.  The  untried 
soul,  whether  it  lights  eyes  "deep  as  the  Devon  springs" 
or  no,  be  it  howsoever  young  it  may,  is  yet  of  the  ages. 

For  of  all  the  false  assumptions  on  which  ethical  systems 
were  once  founded  none  was  more  so  than  the  conception 
of  a  special  faculty  of  moral  intuition  or  instinct,  a  conscience 
implanted  afresh  in  each  human  breast  as  a  miraculous 
gift. 

The  truth  is,  that  men  are  moved  by  a  variety  of  im 
pulses  whose  nature  has  been  determined  through  long 
ages  of  evolutionary  process  without  reference  to  their 
life  in  civilized  societies. 

Ed. 


And  that  was  a  million  years  ago, 

In  a  time  that  no  man  knows; 
Yet  here  to-night  in  the  mellow  light, 

We  sit  at  Delmonico's; 
Your  eyes  are  deep  as  the  Devon 
springs, 

Your  hair  is  as  dark  as  jet, 
Your  years  are  few,  your  life  is  new, 

Your  soul  untried,  and  yet  — 


Kimmeridge  clay,  the  lowest  series  of  the  Upper  Oolite, 
consists  of  dark,  bluish  gray  shaly  clay  which  is  sometimes 
bituminous  and  occasionally,  as  at  Kimeridge  in  the  Isle  of 
Purbeck,  passes  into  a  shale  so  rich  in  bituminous  matter 
as  to  be  used  as  a  fuel.  The  series  attains  a  maximum 
thickness  of  600  feet. 

Chamber's  Encyclopaedia. 

Beneath  the  cretaceous  rocks  in  S.  E.  England  a  fresh 
water  formation  is  found  called  the  Wealden,  which  is  of 
great  interest  as  being  interlaced  between  two  marine 
formations.  It  is  composed  of  three  minor  groups,  Weald 
clay,  Hasting  sand  and  Purbeck  beds  or  flags  of  limestone 
and  marl.  The  Wealden  formation  is  rich  in  fossils.  The 
bones  of  birds  of  the  order  of  Grallae  have  been  discov 
ered  by  Dr.  Mantell  in  the  Wealden  and  appear  to  be 
the  oldest  well-authenticated  examples  of  fossils  of  this 
class  hitherto  found  in  Great  Britain. 

Lyell's  Elements  of  Geology. 

Bagshot  sands,  or  stones,  consist  of  a  series  of  strata 
overlying  the  London  clay,  the  name  being  from  Bagshot 
Heath  near  Windlesham,  Surrey,  where  they  were  first 
examined.  They  belong  to  the  Eocene  system. 

Chamber's  Encyclopaedia. 

WlQfl 

At  some  places,  as  near  Orford,  England,  the  coral 
line  crag  is  exposed  at  the  surface,  and  the  bottom  of  it 
has  not  been  reached  at  the  depth  of  fifty  feet.  The  crag 
shell  belongs  to  the  older  Pliocene  period  and  indicates  a 
temperate  climate. 

Lyell's  Elements  of  Geology. 


*WJM« 

?£j  'jj)  iKL  8H&J 


Our  trail  is  on  the  Kimmeridge  clay, 

And  the  scarp  of  the  Purbeck  flags, 
We  have  left  our  bones  in  the  Bag- 
shot  stones, 

And  deep  in  the  Coraline  crags; 
Our  love  is  old,  our  lives  are  old, 

And  death  shall  come  amain; 
Should  it  come  to-day,  what  man  may 
say 

We  shall  not  live  again? 


I  think  that  one  abstains  from  writing  on  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  because,  when  he  comes  to  the  end  of  his 
statement,  the  hungry  eyes  that  run  through  it  will  close 
disappointed  ;  the  listeners  say,  That  is  not  here  which  we 
desire,  —  and  I  shall  be  as  much  wronged  by  their  hasty 
conclusion,  as  they  feel  themselves  wronged  by  my  omis 
sions.  I  mean  that  I  am  a  better  believer,  and  all  serious 
souls  are  better  believers,  in  the  immortality  that  we  can 
give  grounds  for.  The  real  evidence  is  too  subtle,  or  is 
higher  than  we  can  write  down  in  propositions,  and  there 
fore  Wordsworth's  "  Ode"  is  the  best  modern  essay  on 
the  subject.  Is  immortality  only  an  intellectual  quality,  or, 
shall  I  say,  only  an  energy,  there  being  no  passive  ?  He 
has  it,  and  he  alone,  who  gives  life  to  all  names,  persons, 
things,  where  he  comes.  No  religion,  not  the  wildest 
mythology,  dies  for  him  ;  no  art  is  lost.  He  vivifies  what 
he  touches.  Future  state  is  an  illusion  for  the  ever-present 
state.  It  is  not  length  of  life  but  depth  of  life.  It  is  not 
duration,  but  a  taking  of  the  soul  out  of  time,  as  all  high 
action  of  the  mind  does :  when  we  are  living  in  the  senti 
ments  we  ask  no  questions  about  time.  The  spiritual  world 
takes  place  ;  —  that  which  is  always  the  same.  But  see 
how  the  sentiment  is  wise.  Jesus  explained  nothing,  but 
the  influence  of  him  took  people  out  of  time,  and  they  felt 
eternal.  A  great  integrity  makes  us  immortal :  an  admi 
ration,  a  deep  love,  a  strong  will,  arms  us  above  fear. 

"Immortality."     Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


XIII 

God    wrought   our   souls    from   the 

Tremadoc  beds 

And  furnished  them  wings  to  fly; 
He  sowed  our  spawn  in  the  world's 

dim  dawn, 

And  I  know  that  it  shall  not  die; 
Though  cities  have  sprung  above  the 

graves 
Where  the  crook-boned  men  made 

war, 

And  the  ox-wain  creaks  o'er  the  bur 
ied  caves, 

Where   the   mummied   mammoths 
are. 


issfll.j 


Nietzsche  believed  that  an  ideal  human  society  would 
be  one  in  which  a  vast,  inert,  religious,  moral  slave  class 
stood  beneath  a  small,  alert,  iconoclastic,  immoral,  pro 
gressive  master  class.  He  held  that  this  master  class  — 
this  aristocracy  of  efficiency  —  should  regard  the  slave 
class  as  all  men  now  regard  the  tribe  of  domestic  beasts : 
as  an  order  of  servitors  to  be  exploited  and  turned  to  ac 
count.  The  aristocracy  of  Europe,  though  it  sought  to  do 
this  with  respect  to  the  workers  of  Europe,  seemed  to  him 
to  fail  miserably,  because  it  was  itself  lacking  in  true  effi 
ciency.  Instead  of  practising  a  magnificent  opportunism 
and  so  adapting  itself  to  changing  conditions,  it  stood  for 
formalism  and  permanence.  Its  fetish  was  property  in  land 
and  the  worship  of  this  fetish  had  got  it  into  such  a  rut 
that  it  was  becoming  less  and  less  fitted  to  survive,  and 
was,  indeed,  fast  sinking  into  helpless  parasitism.  Its  whole 
color  and  complexion  were  essentially  apollonic. 

Therefore  Nietzsche  preached  the  gospel  of  Dionysus, 
that  a  new  aristocracy  of  efficiency  might  take  the  place 
of  this  old  aristocracy  of  memories  and  inherited  glories. 
He  believed  that  it  was  only  in  this  way  that  mankind 
could  hope  to  forge  ahead,  —  mankind  bent  on  achieving, 
not  the  equality  of  all  men,  but  the  production,  at  the  top, 
of  the  superman. 

The  Philosophy  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche, 
by  Henry  L.  Mencken. 


Then  as  we  linger  at  luncheon  here, 

O'er  many  a  dainty  dish, 
Let  us  drink  anew  to  the  time  when 
you 

Were  a  Tadpole  and  I  was  a  Fish. 


FIFTY    YEARS     OF     EVOLUTION 


FIFTY   YEARS    OF   EVOLUTION 

By  a  fortuitous  coincidence  the  one  hundredth  anni 
versary  of  Charles  Darwin's  birth  falls  within  the  same 
year  as  that  which  marks  the  fiftieth  since  the  publica 
tion  of  "  The  Origin  of  Species  "  in  which  he  laid  before 
the  world  for  the  first  time  convincing  evidence  of  the 
theory  of  Evolution. 

That  a  double  anniversary  of  such  moment,  giving  as 
it  did  an  opportunity  to  honor  on  the  same  occasion  both 
the  nobility  of  the  individual  himself  and  his  epoch  ma 
king  work,  would  be  fittingly  celebrated,  was  universally 
expected  and  more  than  happily  realized.  The  tribute 
of  every  scientific  body  of  importance  throughout  Eu 
rope  and  America  has  been  paid  to  the  memory  of  the 
dead  man  and  to  the  ever  living,  ever  waxing  revelation 
of  his  mind. 

The  realization  of  a  new  truth,  so  potent  as  to  uproot 
the  established  attitude  of  mind  of  perhaps  more  than 
one-half  of  the  civilized  world  toward  philosophy  and 
science,  is  a  phenomenon  that  has  been  recorded  but  sel 
dom,  and  fortunately;  for,  the  laws  of  nature  make  but 


43 


slight  provision  to  safeguard  against  the  results  of  vio 
lent  change  whether  it  be  physical  or  mental  and  emo 
tional. 

But  such  truths  have  nevertheless  at  rare  intervals 
blazed  across  the  darkling  sky  that  curtains  the  yet  un- 
reached  limit  of  human  intelligence  lighting  the  beacons 
on  new  heights  of  learning  and  understanding,  — 
heights  which  once  gained  have  become  the  permanent 
heritage  of  mankind  in  his  advance  from  whence  he 
views  the  ever  widening  aspect  of  the  material  and  spirit 
ual  world  beckoning  him  forward  to  paths  that  lead  their 
winding  course  through  the  fertile  fields  of  knowledge 
to  that  temple  beyond  the  horizon  where  dwells  the 
Spirit  of  Ultimate  Comprehension. 

To  such  a  peak  Galileo  unfalteringly  guided  the 
steps  of  men,  though  the  heel  of  the  advance  crushed  into 
dust  the  philosophy  of  centuries  and  the  dogma  of  the 
church.  To  such  another  Newton  led  the  way  by  his 
discovery  of  the  laws  of  gravitation.  One  of  lesser  height 
perhaps,  though  equally  far  in  the  van,  was  mounted 
when  the  principle  of  the  conservation  and  correlation 
of  forces  was  demonstrated. 

Can  there  be  a  moment's  hesitation  in  adding  to  this 


44 


company  the  name  of  Charles  Darwin  or  in  recognizing 
in  the  watchfire  of  Evolution  the  flaming  torch  which 
lights  the  topmost  crag  in  the  whole  range  of  human 
understanding? 

If  a  doubt  lingers  in  any  mind  it  will  vanish  on  giving 
a  little  reflection  to  the  views  held  by  the  leading  zoolo 
gists,  biologists,  theologians,  philosophers  and  indeed  the 
mass  of  educated  men  in  general  before  the  publication 
of  "  The  Origin  of  Species  "  and  comparing  such  views 
with  those  now  held  either  by  them  or  their  representa 
tives  of  later  generations. 

The  theologians,  who  from  the  beginning  of  time  have 
accredited  themselves  as  the  custodians  of  all  funda 
mental  truth  having,  by  hasty  discards  of  old  dogmas, 
survived  the  shock  of  learning  that  the  earth  is  round, 
and  that  the  sun,  moon  and  stars  are  held  in  place  in 
the  universe  by  the  force  of  gravity,  continued  to  hold 
as  they  had  for  some  four  thousand  years  to  the  theory 
of  individual  creation  as  set  forth  by  the  biblical  authors. 
In  the  main  this  proposition  had  passed  unchallenged 
even  by  scientists,  though  before  Darwin,  as  he  is  at 
pains  to  record  with  all  possible  detail,  some  naturalists, 
to  make  use  of  a  very  general  term,  expressed  the  opin- 


45 


ion  that  changed  conditions  of  life  had  given  rise  to  a 
sufficient  differentiation  in  individual  forms  to  create 
new  species.  Nor  did  Philosophy  herself  in  those  days 
steer  her  bark  far  enough  from  the  shores  of  dogma  to 
catch  the  broad  sweeping  current  of  the  law  of  change. 

Like  a  meteor,  fell  "  The  Origin  of  Species  "  into  this 
placid  pool  of  thought,  on  the  banks  of  which  Theology, 
Philosophy  and  the  youngest  of  the  pilgrims,  Science, 
had  halted  in  their  march  several  years  before,  and  where 
they  still  lingered  dreaming  dreams  and  telling  each 
other  tales  of  folklore. 

Instantly  Science,  his  young  blood  and  imagination 
electrified  by  the  message,  darted  forward  on  winged 
feet,  his  eyes  ablaze  with  the  promise  of  measureless  serv 
ice  to  mankind.  His  elder  companions  paused  awhile 
sniffing  the  air  for  brimstone  and  calling  after  him  to 
stay  his  pace,  but  as  in  his  wake  followed  first  one  and 
then  another  of  their  disciples  the  chill  of  loneliness  fell 
upon  them,  and  they  too  set  out  to  overtake,  if  might 
be,  the  leader  now  far  in  the  distance. 

To  restate  briefly  the  principal  advanced  by  Darwin 
in  "  The  Origin  of  Species  "  it  may  be  said  that,  all 
forms  of  living  organisms,  plants  and  animals  including 


46 


inan,  are  the  lineal  descendants  of  ancestors  on  the  whole 
somewhat  simpler,  that  these  again  are  descended  from 
yet  simpler  forms,  and  so  on  back  to  the  single  cell  of 
living  matter  the  creation  of  which  later  scientists,  such 
as  Lowell,  ascribe  to  spontaneous  chemical  action.  The 
rise  of  the  numberless  species  of  living  organisms  now 
existent,  as  well  as  those  whose  life  history  is  recorded 
only  by  fossil  remains  in  the  rocks  of  past  geological 
eras,  Darwin  attributes  chiefly  to  natural  selection  dur 
ing  a  long  course  of  descent,  aided  in  an  important  man 
ner  by  the  inherited  effect  of  the  use  or  disuse  of  parts, 
and  in  an  unimportant  manner  by  external  conditions 
and  by  variations. 

So  far  reaching  has  been  the  effect,  in  all  departments 
of  science,  occasioned  by  the  changed  viewpoint  from 
which  subsequent  investigations  have  been  conducted, 
that  no  words  can  adequately  express  it. 

True,  we  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  without  special 
ized  scientific  knowledge  continue  incapable  of  original 
investigation,  often  even  unable  to  fathom  the  terminol 
ogy  employed  in  the  treatment  of  the  less  familiar  sub 
jects.  To  us  the  intricacies  and  minutiae  of  science  con 
tinue  as  a  sealed  book,  but  the  far  reaching  principle  of 


47 


evolution,  in  its  wide  application,  now  that  our  thoughts 
have  been  intelligently  directed  toward  it,  presents  itself 
with  so  strong  an  appeal  to  our  faculty  of  common-sense 
and  its  simpler  evidences  are  so  clearly  within  range  of 
our  observation  that  only  one  of  unreceptive  mind 
reaches  man's  estate  without  consciousness  of  the  change, 
the  development,  the  evolution  in  the  world  about  him 
even  during  the  few  short  years  of  his  existence. 
Through  this  consciousness  he,  too,  acquires  a  viewpoint 
from  which  evolutionary  law  unfolds  itself,  as  a  natural 
expression  of  the  known  forces  of  nature. 

While  Darwin  in  "  The  Origin  of  Species  "  refrained 
from  attempting  to  trace  in  detail  the  genealogy  of  any 
particular  species,  certain  conclusions  were  obvious  by 
analogy.  The  most  revolutionary  of  these  imaginatively, 
though  not  scientifically,  pointed  directly  to  the  origin 
of  the  human  race.  These  inferences  a  few  years  later 
he  presented  with  all  the  evidence  at  his  command  in 
"  The  Descent  of  Man." 

The  shock  produced  did  not  spring  directly  from 
the  biological  revelations  nor  from  the  realization  that 
the  nearest  extant  ancestors  of  the  lower  races  of  man 
are  the  anthropoid  apes,  but  rather  from  the  blow  it  dealt 


48 


the  enormous  vanity  and  egoism  of  the  human  species. 
This  egoism  had  built  up  out  of  itself  the  conception 
that  the  universe  had  its  being  solely  to  accommodate 
the  needs  of  man  who  was  of  truth  its  centre ;  and  having 
conceived  the  idea  of  a  personal  god  insisted  that  he 
bore  the  image  of  man.  Correlative  conclusions  of  dis 
tinct  creation  and  ready  made  mystical  endowments 
peculiar  to  his  order,  which  as  man  was  the  classifier 
he  had  declared  to  be  entirely  separate  and  unrelated  to 
any  other  order,  naturally  followed. 

The  disturbance  of  man's  ideas  of  himself  was  in  no 
sense  lessened  by  the  knowledge  that  his  material  com 
fort  and  well  being  were  certain  to  be  benefited  by  dis 
coveries  inspired  by  evolution  nor  that  no  tangible  pos 
session  acquired  during  his  entire  history  was  endan 
gered.  A  child  of  his  imagination,  the  natural  offspring 
of  his  introspective  and  self -centered  habit  alone  was 
struck  down.  Yet  to  recover  his  mental  balance  was  all 
the  harder  for  that  very  reason  and  not  only  on  account 
of  the  long  period  through  which  his  erroneous  concep 
tion  of  himself  had  persisted  but  also  because  his  spirit 
ual  concepts,  systematized  into  religious  dogma,  had  be 
come  interwoven  with  it  A  supernatural  or  divine 


49 


authority  was  claimed  for  these  dogmas  which  were 
dependent  for  their  existence  primarily  on  a  mainte 
nance  of  man's  exaggerated  egoism  and  incidentally  on 
his  continued  affirmation  of  the  accuracy  of  historical 
religious  records  at  variance  with  the  truth  as  demon 
strable  facts  satisfying  to  his  more  developed  powers  of 
reasoning  assured  him. 

Nevertheless  with  rapidly  increasing  momentum  man 
is  adapting  himself  to  the  more  inspiring  view  which  a 
comprehension  of  his  own  place  in  the  universe  has  given 
him. 

No  lessening  of  the  spiritual  quality  in  his  nature 
comes  with  the  growing  understanding  of  nature,  but 
true  to  the  universal  law  of  evolutionary  advance,  it  ex 
pands.  Though  every  dogma  religion  has  hitherto  pro 
duced  is  probably  false  and  destined  to  be  discarded,  yet 
there  can  be  no  apprehension  that  with  them  will  depart 
religious  feeling  or  spiritual  sensitiveness.  The  passion 
ate  outcry  raised  on  every  hand  when  it  was  appreciated 
that  Darwin's  discoveries  meant  the  recasting  of  sub 
stantially  all  established  beliefs  was  not  necessary  to  con 
vince  the  world  that  ideas  and  emotions,  the  resultant 
of  mental  operations,  are  far  more  real  and  hold  a  firmer 


50 


place  in  man's  heart  than  any  tangible  product  of  his  or 
nature's  hand.  Scarcely  is  there  a  page  of  history  but 
bears  upon  its  face  this  testimony. 

As  further  and  further  man  projects  his  intelligence 
into  the  realms  of  space,  as  deeper  and  deeper  he  pene 
trates  into  nature's  mysteries,  he  gradually  overcomes 
the  tendency  to  attempt  the  formularization  of  it  all  in 
terms  of  self.  His  whole  personality  becomes  more  fluid 
and  vibrates  in  ever  closer  unison  with  the  majestic 
forces  of  Cosmos.  From  such  an  approach  comes  an 
irresistible  stimulus  to  all  that  is  spiritual  in  him,  to  all 
that  quality  underlying  the  consciousness  that  the  prime 
realities  are  the  intangible  and  not  those  known  to  the 
sensory  organs.  In  such  an  approach  lies  also  the  sur 
est  promise  that  psychology,  having  taken  as  its  watch 
word,  "  the  necessary  acquirement  of  each  mental  capac 
ity  by  gradation,"  will,  profiting  by  that  unison,  disclose 
to  our  intelligence  the  secret  by  which  we  may  grasp 
mentally  those  spiritual  realities  with  as  strong  a  sen 
sory  assurance  as  we  now  do  the  tangible. 


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